I've fallen in love with the 12" iBook, and the price is very
competitive with Windows machines. I've been a PC user for many
years, but my first love was a Mac and I only abandoned the platform
after Macs started to get really crappy (OS 7.x). With OSX, I want to
return to fold. Ironically, this is not because Windows is a lousy
OS. It may have been true in the past, but XP is great. However, I
still have a congenital hatred of Microsoft, and the design of the
iBook is fantastic. So I'd like to switch, but I have reservations.

When I left Macs, I had no doubt that I was leaving behind the better
interface. But now I'm afraid of leaving behind the features I have
gotten so used to. The big letdown for me is the difficulty using
keyboard navigation. I not talking about apple-w or apple-q or things
like that, but like pressing y or n to answer save prompts, and most
importantly, navigating menus with the keyboard.

When I went to the Apple store, they showed me the enhanced keyboard
option, which let me assign a hotkey which would let me use arrow keys
to navigate the menu. This is far inferior to the PC, where you can
hit alt-L[ayer], F[latten image] to flatten an image in Photoshop, for
example.

I know this is kind of whiny, but it's important to me. And back when
I had a crappy mac, I had a utility that did just that. You could
press the apple key, and the first letter of each menu item would
underline (or if there were repeats, the second letter). I have no
idea what it was called, unfortunately. And I've been trying searches
on the web and on usenet, but I haven't seen anything that does what I
want it to do. Are there any utilities that accomplish this?

Thanks,
Neil

Carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of Neil
Banman of comp.sys.mac make plain:

> return to fold. Ironically, this is not because Windows is a lousy
> OS. It may have been true in the past, but XP is great. However, I
> still have a congenital hatred of Microsoft, and the design of the
> iBook is fantastic. So I'd like to switch, but I have reservations.

I'm in pretty much the same boat. Originally I was a PC man (well,
*originally* I was a PDP 11/70 Unix man, but that's a different story). I
looked down on the Mac as not techie friendly, as having an attitude of
"You don't need to know about that." Then I got hired to teach Macintosh
classes at a local computer store. I discovered Resedit, and I was
instantly hooked. I was (and still am) a strong Mac believer. However, I
went back to MS out of necessity. Now I have a little more flexibility in
my choices, and am looking at going back to Mac. But I must admit that MS
has come up with some useful things in their UI. Alt-Tab is a big one.
Mac kind of has that now, but it doesn't allow you to select the app you
want to go to, just cycles through them. A very big factor for me is text
navigation, which as far as I can tell sucks in the Mac UI. No ctrl-arrow
for skipping words; no shift-arrow for selecting text, etc. I use these
things a lot. Maybe there are equivalents and I just haven't discovered
them. My mother bought an iMac a couple of years ago to get on the net,
then decided she wasn't interested in it, so I bought it from her and my
girlfriend uses it for email and I use it sometimes to test web design
elements, since one of my major clients uses Mac. As I work with it I'm
learning more and will eventually switch. But I think Apple could learn a
lot by taking a bunch of proficient Windows users and sticking them on
Macs, and finding out what things they run into.

--
Alan Little
Phorm PHP Form Processor
http://www.phorm.com/

In article <Xns944A5DA8DF5A0alanphormcom@216.196.97.132>, Alan Little <alan@n-o-s-p-a-m-phorm.com> writes:
>Carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of Neil
>Banman of comp.sys.mac make plain:
>
>> return to fold. Ironically, this is not because Windows is a lousy
>> OS. It may have been true in the past, but XP is great. However, I
>> still have a congenital hatred of Microsoft, and the design of the
>> iBook is fantastic. So I'd like to switch, but I have reservations.
>
>I'm in pretty much the same boat. Originally I was a PC man (well,
>*originally* I was a PDP 11/70 Unix man, but that's a different story). I
>looked down on the Mac as not techie friendly, as having an attitude of
>"You don't need to know about that." Then I got hired to teach Macintosh
>classes at a local computer store. I discovered Resedit, and I was
>instantly hooked. I was (and still am) a strong Mac believer. However, I
>went back to MS out of necessity. Now I have a little more flexibility in
>my choices, and am looking at going back to Mac. But I must admit that MS
>has come up with some useful things in their UI. Alt-Tab is a big one.
>Mac kind of has that now, but it doesn't allow you to select the app you
>want to go to, just cycles through them. A very big factor for me is text
>navigation, which as far as I can tell sucks in the Mac UI. No ctrl-arrow
>for skipping words; no shift-arrow for selecting text, etc. I use these
>things a lot. Maybe there are equivalents and I just haven't discovered
>them. My mother bought an iMac a couple of years ago to get on the net,
>then decided she wasn't interested in it, so I bought it from her and my
>girlfriend uses it for email and I use it sometimes to test web design



Au contraire! I am a VMS bigot. I've been working with VMS for 20+
years and find PeeCees and Micro$oft's OSs and GUIs to be hostile and
not at all intuitive. I recently purchased an Apple Powerbook G4 17"
laptop. I took to it like a fish to water. I also purchased a Blue-
tooth wireless keyboard which has a layout like that of the keyboards
in the VMS/DEC realm. On a PC, it's a kludge to map keys into a VMS
DEC environment. It took me only 5 xmodmaps to map the scan codes of
the wireless keyboard to the codes of a full DEC keyboard (key layouts
are in the proper locations, just different scan codes). Very pleas-
ing to be able to type on a familiar keyboard layout.

In addition, underneath all of the GUI is a BSD kernel. Real command
syntax not the kludge of Start/Run/CMD to get to a half-baked M$-DOS
window where little if anything can be accomplished.

The only thing I really miss is quality documentation. Help and good
examples are really lacking, but then they are in the Micro$oft envir-
onment as well.

I plugged my son's digital camera into the PB. It recognized it immed-
iately and I was able to download pix. The PeeCee required the instal-
lation of camera software and it bugs out everytime the camera is plug-
ged or unplugged while the software program is active.

The PB plays DVDs without hiccoughing when an application is opened or
closed unlike the brand new IBM Thinkpad laptop my wife received at her
place of employment.

Visually: fonts, colors, etc. are far more pleasing on the eyes on this
PB than on any PeeCee I've ever had to use.


>elements, since one of my major clients uses Mac. As I work with it I'm
>learning more and will eventually switch. But I think Apple could learn a
>lot by taking a bunch of proficient Windows users and sticking them on
>Macs, and finding out what things they run into.
>
>--
>Alan Little
>Phorm PHP Form Processor
>http://www.phorm.com/

The British could learn alot by taking a bunch of proficient NYC drivers
and sticking them on english motorways and roundabouts, and finding out
what things they run into.... Yeah, right!

I wouldn't want or expect to have Weendoze users be able to be proficient
on the Apple and vice versa. Coming from a background biased by neither,
I'd take the Apple 1E+06 to 1 over anything Micro$oft.

--
http://www.legacy-2000.com for the best OpenVMS system security solutions.

VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM

"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

Carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of of
comp.sys.mac make plain:

> In article <Xns944A5DA8DF5A0alanphormcom@216.196.97.132>, Alan Little
> <alan@n-o-s-p-a-m-phorm.com> writes:

> *originally* I was a PDP 11/70 Unix man,

> my choices, and am looking at going back to Mac. But I must
> admit that MS has come up with some useful things in their UI.

> Au contraire! I am a VMS bigot. I've been working with VMS for 20+
> years and find PeeCees and Micro$oft's OSs and GUIs to be hostile and
> not at all intuitive.

I'm mentioned only the UI, not the OS itself, and even for that, I didn't
say it's perfect, nor even especially intuitive. I just said there are
features of it that are, in fact, useful, which seem to be lacking in the
Mac UI. Overall, Windows sucks rancid goat sweat and MS is the poster
child for corporate greed and evil. But to assert that MS never got
anything right at all ever, is simply blind ignorance and prejudice.

> [snip lots of Mac vs Windows stuff]

Yes, Mac is better. That would be the reason I would want to switch back.

> Visually: fonts, colors, etc. are far more pleasing on the eyes on
> this PB than on any PeeCee I've ever had to use.

And that would be largely a matter of configuration. I'm sure I could set
up a Mac to look absolutely awful. Whereas my Windows setup is just fine,
but I could make it look awful, as well. It's also a matter of
preference: you might not like the appearance of my system, but I like it
quite well.

>> But I think Apple could
>> learn a lot by taking a bunch of proficient Windows users and sticking
>> them on Macs, and finding out what things they run into.
>>
> The British could learn alot by taking a bunch of proficient NYC
> drivers and sticking them on english motorways and roundabouts, and
> finding out what things they run into.... Yeah, right!

If they were particularly interested in making it easier for American
drivers to drive there, yes they might. I wouldn't particularly expect
them to be. *But* to suggest that the British have an absolutely perfect
driving system and could never learn anything from the Americans (or
anyone else) is again blind ignorance and prejudice. Is there something
inherently *wrong* with being able to Alt-Tab and have a popup to select
apps? No. Is there something inherently superior to having it just cycle
through the apps without giving the user a choice? I don't think so.

If Apple wants to take people away from Windows, ease of transition is
key, and the key to that is familiarity.

> I wouldn't want or expect to have Weendoze users be able to be
> proficient on the Apple and vice versa.

And blind arrogance.

--
Alan Little
Phorm PHP Form Processor
http://www.phorm.com/

VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes:
[...]
> In addition, underneath all of the GUI is a BSD kernel. Real
> command syntax not the kludge of Start/Run/CMD to get to a
> half-baked M$-DOS window where little if anything can be
> accomplished.
[...]

If you really need a useful shell in Windows check out Cygwin. Very
good and useful for those who need it.

Things like bash, zsh, Apache, CVS, etc. are all available.

--
David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca>, http://www.magda.ca/
Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new. -- Niccolo Machiavelli, _The Prince_, Chapter VI

In article <Xns944A9E791BD5Calanphormcom@216.196.97.132>, Alan Little <alan@n-o-s-p-a-m-phorm.com> writes:
>Carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of of
>comp.sys.mac make plain:
>
>> In article <Xns944A5DA8DF5A0alanphormcom@216.196.97.132>, Alan Little
>> <alan@n-o-s-p-a-m-phorm.com> writes:
>
>> *originally* I was a PDP 11/70 Unix man,
>
>> my choices, and am looking at going back to Mac. But I must
>> admit that MS has come up with some useful things in their UI.
>
>> Au contraire! I am a VMS bigot. I've been working with VMS for 20+
>> years and find PeeCees and Micro$oft's OSs and GUIs to be hostile and
>> not at all intuitive.
>
>I'm mentioned only the UI, not the OS itself, and even for that, I didn't
>say it's perfect, nor even especially intuitive. I just said there are
>features of it that are, in fact, useful, which seem to be lacking in the
>Mac UI. Overall, Windows sucks rancid goat sweat and MS is the poster
>child for corporate greed and evil. But to assert that MS never got
>anything right at all ever, is simply blind ignorance and prejudice.

You cut that attribution from the quote but I never said anything of
the sort. I said that I find the M$ OSs and GUIs to be hostile and
not intuitive. I never said anything about right or wrong. I said
that I was on the outside of both camps: M$ and Apple. I played with
and Apple for just a few brief minutes a few months ago and was quite
easily able to navigate it. You wish though that I would say the same
for M$ which, sadly, I cannot. In fact, I read your original posting
twice just to be certain it wasn't just troll fodder.


>
>> [snip lots of Mac vs Windows stuff]
>
>Yes, Mac is better. That would be the reason I would want to switch back.
>
>> Visually: fonts, colors, etc. are far more pleasing on the eyes on
>> this PB than on any PeeCee I've ever had to use.
>
>And that would be largely a matter of configuration. I'm sure I could set
>up a Mac to look absolutely awful. Whereas my Windows setup is just fine,
>but I could make it look awful, as well. It's also a matter of
>preference: you might not like the appearance of my system, but I like it
>quite well.

C'mon. I've often remarded that for all its money, I still cannot see
how M$ can have such crappy icon and other artwork. Billy could pay
my four year old half of what he pays his "artists" and get better out-
put.


>> The British could learn alot by taking a bunch of proficient NYC
>> drivers and sticking them on english motorways and roundabouts, and
>> finding out what things they run into.... Yeah, right!
>
>If they were particularly interested in making it easier for American
>drivers to drive there, yes they might. I wouldn't particularly expect
>them to be. *But* to suggest that the British have an absolutely perfect
>driving system and could never learn anything from the Americans (or
>anyone else) is again blind ignorance and prejudice. Is there something
>inherently *wrong* with being able to Alt-Tab and have a popup to select
>apps? No. Is there something inherently superior to having it just cycle
>through the apps without giving the user a choice? I don't think so.

Who said they were interested in making it easier for American drivers
to drive there??? I haven't suggested that the Brits have a perfect
driving system, just different. Same with the GUIs of Apple and M$.
I for one like the difference and wouldn't want the Apple GUI to suffer
the M$ luggage. I didn't know ALT-TAB would give a popup. See, there
is the *intuitive* that everybody touts in M$ GUIs. It simply not!
People confuse their familiarity with M$ GUI with *intuitive* design.
Like I said before, I don't often use a PeeCee but I certainly have
far more than I had ever used an Apple. In just a few minutes on an
Apple PB at a major electronics chain showroom, I felt more at ease
with it than I have ever felt using any PeeCee.


>If Apple wants to take people away from Windows, ease of transition is
>key, and the key to that is familiarity.

Who said that is their goal. If they wanted that, they produce H/W
and have it run Weendoze..... God forbid.



>> I wouldn't want or expect to have Weendoze users be able to be
>> proficient on the Apple and vice versa.
>
>And blind arrogance.

.... and if it's arrogance, then so be it; however, I can do more in
my command line interpreter with less effort on VMS than I can do in
any GUI.
--
http://www.legacy-2000.com for the best OpenVMS system security solutions.

VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM

"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

In article <86vfosxse3.fsf@number6.magda.ca>, David Magda <dmagda+trace031024@ee.ryerson.ca> writes:
>VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG writes:
>[...]
>> In addition, underneath all of the GUI is a BSD kernel. Real
>> command syntax not the kludge of Start/Run/CMD to get to a
>> half-baked M$-DOS window where little if anything can be
>> accomplished.
>[...]
>
>If you really need a useful shell in Windows check out Cygwin. Very
>good and useful for those who need it.

cygwin??? Is that native? Doesn't sound it.

I was alluding to native capabilities, in which case the Apple has it hands
down over M$.


>Things like bash, zsh, Apache, CVS, etc. are all available.

Oh god... CVS! NO thanks.

--
http://www.legacy-2000.com for the best OpenVMS system security solutions.

VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM

"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

Alan Little <alan@n-o-s-p-a-m-phorm.com> wrote:

> .... A very big factor for me is text
> navigation, which as far as I can tell sucks in the Mac UI. No ctrl-arrow
> for skipping words; no shift-arrow for selecting text, etc. I use these
> things a lot. Maybe there are equivalents and I just haven't discovered
> them.

On *my* stock iBook, Shift-cursorkey works exactly as you want.
Word-at-a-time cursor movement uses Option-cursorkey, not Control-, but
that's no big deal.

> My mother bought an iMac a couple of years ago to get on the net,
> then decided she wasn't interested in it, so I bought it from her and my
> girlfriend uses it for email and I use it sometimes to test web design
> elements, since one of my major clients uses Mac. As I work with it I'm
> learning more and will eventually switch. But I think Apple could learn a
> lot by taking a bunch of proficient Windows users and sticking them on
> Macs, and finding out what things they run into.

That's kind of an amusing suggestion. What I see Windows-centric people
running into when they use a Macintosh are usually macro-scale things.
They'll ask me "How do I do this?" I'll think hard for a bit trying to
help them, then we'll eventually work out that they don't actually need to
do what they're trying to do at all, and only tried to do it in the first
place because Windows requires it. For example, I've lost track of the
number of times I've had to demonstrate that drag-and-drop of files works
*better* if you don't keep selecting the source window first.

From my point of view, *Windows* is the platform that needs to have the
rough edges smoothed. :-) Mac "proficiency" tends to be of a different
sort than Windows -- getting good at using Windows often requires that you
learn specific details of individual functions rather than general
consistent principles.

I knew I might be delving into a touchy topic, but I'm amazed at how
fast this turned into a religious war. For the record, I don't think
Alan Little is a troll. After all, he wants to switch to a Mac and
merely posited that Apple could learn *something* from Windows.
Surely even the most die-hard partisan would grant that a second mouse
button would be useful?

As a Mac user from the glory days (had a Mac SE) and the
not-so-glorious days (2nd gen. PPC), I have to say that the XP UI
totally floats my boat. DESPITE that, I desperately want to switch
(as did the other PC "defender").

I was originally looking for 3rd party software to make a Mac more
PC-like, and I'm guessing that it doesn't exist. I do agree with Alan
that Apple should get a group of PC users to thrash the UI out and
complain about it. All we need is some extra functionality, perhaps
optional and enabled in the control panel, that would let us do the
things we're accustomed to doing. Some of it makes a lot of sense.

In article <ab56ee07.0312080320.7812116a@posting.google.com >, googlegroups.20.shuppatsu@spamgourmet.com (Neil Banman) writes:
>I knew I might be delving into a touchy topic, but I'm amazed at how
>fast this turned into a religious war. For the record, I don't think
>Alan Little is a troll. After all, he wants to switch to a Mac and
>merely posited that Apple could learn *something* from Windows.
>Surely even the most die-hard partisan would grant that a second mouse
>button would be useful?

You'd be amazed at how many simple postings that appear to be legit
queries are, in fact, intended to incite the regulars in a ng.



>I was originally looking for 3rd party software to make a Mac more
>PC-like, and I'm guessing that it doesn't exist. I do agree with Alan
>that Apple should get a group of PC users to thrash the UI out and
>complain about it. All we need is some extra functionality, perhaps
>optional and enabled in the control panel, that would let us do the
>things we're accustomed to doing. Some of it makes a lot of sense.

....and my post about American/British was read wrongly. You're not
going to change the ways of drivers on either side of the Atlantic;
nor should you try to change the ways of the drivers on the shores
of the PeeCee and Mac seas. Learn each. There are differences in
the philosophy of both -- whether good or bad -- and you should be
embracing them and not trying to change them.

Like I said, I come from the VMS world but I can live and navigate
in the unix realm. I still think that VMS command syntax, for ex-
ample, is better than unix. DIRECTORY(VMS) for ls(unix); SEARCH
for grep; RENAME for mv; DELETE for rm; etc. etc. I believe it is
far more intuitive to use the "english" command names in VMS than
it is to use the cryptic unix commands but I'm not promoting that
unix be changed in the least. You learn it and then do it. Same
goes for the PeeCee/Apple differences. If there is any "religion"
in this thread, it is from the PeeCee types wanting to bastardize
the Apple GUI. Like I said before, coming to all of this from out-
side of both camps, I can navigate my new PowerBook's GUI without
having to chow down a vallium, down several pints of Guinness and
pound my head between two bricks to dumb myself down to where any-
thing I have to do on the PeeCee makes sense.

Here's some for you... The kids have dropped the Gateway's mouse on
the ground so often that it was iffy trying to click with the main
mouse button used if you're a righty (didn't bother me I'm lefty).
I purchased a Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse. It would func-
tion during the initial load but as soon as Weendoze took over, it
wouldn't function properly. Several "BIOS" updates and driver up-
dates didn't fix the problem. Then on about the third or fourth
support call, someone suggested that I swap the mouse and keyboard
plugs on the back of the PeeCee. (ie. mouse's plug into keyboard's
jack; keyboard's plug into mouse's jack). That fixed the problem
and gave me a headache. That's just one of the many many many too
many kludges I've had to endure over the years with the PeeCee. I
have another concerning making it work with my color laser printer.
For one, Billy won't let you use a $ sign in the lpd queue name. I
suppose he's reserving the $s for himself. I needed to install a
"driver" for the printer (for a totally autonomous network device)
to make it function. After conjuring up a totally new queue name
without a $ sign and several reboots, the printer was usable. (It
still can't properly select which tray to use). Took me just one
try in the Apple to setup this same laser printer. The window on
the Apple didn't balk when I gave it the queue name with the $ in
it and I didn't need to reboot numerous times (didn't need to re-
boot at all!). ... and, if I select US legal... the second bin on
the printer is selected (even though it's not legal size paper but
letterhead...). I won't delve too far into the networking issues
but I haven't had to once manually release a DHCP address issued to
the Powerbook from my DHCP server. This is a problem time and time
again on the PeeCee whenever it is rebooted. I have also been able
to reconfigure the various network interfaces on the Powerbook and
didn't need to reboot!

I am not an Apple zealot. I'm just relaying my experiences and it
would seem that, from my perspective, things just work in the Apple
world and they work a whole lot better than in Billy's world.

--
http://www.legacy-2000.com for the best OpenVMS system security solutions.

VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM

"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

Neil Banman wrote:
> For the record, I don't think
> Alan Little is a troll. After all, he wants to switch to a Mac and
> merely posited that Apple could learn *something* from Windows.

I can speak from personal experience - Alan Little is NOT a troll - I've know
him for over 7 years from other private newsgroups and discussions (as we both
host sites at the same web provider), and he's serious about his questions. I
even helped him with some questions back when his Mom had the iMac.

Hello Alan!

Scott

I appreciate your comments, and I'll take this opportunity to step
back a bit, since I don't want this to become a Mac vs. PC thing. I
do have a lot to say because it's something I'm interested in, but I
took too critical a tone toward Apple. They have done a lot of things
right, for sure.

That said, I want to clarify a few things. I am not an apologist for
Windows, though I think the current *user interface* is excellent.
Having worked tech support for PC's and having used them for years, I
know all too well the ridiculous problems associated with them (for
example, this weekend, I reinstalled from scratch to get my CD burner
to work). On the other hand, I had a Mac in college at a
predominantly Mac school, and I've got plenty of lovely anecdotes from
that side as well. But I appreciate how things *just work* on a Mac,
and that's not at all something I'd want to argue about.

Perhaps it's not a point worth belabouring, but I don't really
understand the "don't ask for change because the user interfaces have
different philosophies" argument. First of all, I don't think there
is much of a philosophical difference betweeen the two UI's (hope
that's not opening up a new can of worms), largely because Microsoft
stole elements from Apple wholesale. Robust keyboard support doesn't
get in the way of how Macs are normally used.

Secondly, I think the user should be able to define his user
experience as he sees fit. An example that kind of parallels your
VMS/UNIX thing is Cygwin. While I'm no fan of UNIX commands either
(grep? ls? awk? what were they thinking?), their shell is way better
than command.com. So I downloaded Cygwin, which provides a unix-like
command-line environment for Windows.

Like it or not (and none of us do), Windows is the dominant paradigm.
Apple wants people to switch, and I think it's in their best interest
to make it as easy as possible for that switch to occur.

As a postscript, when I was in highschool I used to have a PC with
Windows 3.x. I used to design programs in my head that would make
the UI more like a Mac. So you see I've been kvetching about
perceived shortcomings in UI for a long time...

VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote in message news:<00A2A0E9.A5E88033@SendSpamHere.ORG>...
>
> You'd be amazed at how many simple postings that appear to be legit
> queries are, in fact, intended to incite the regulars in a ng.
>
>
>
> >I was originally looking for 3rd party software to make a Mac more
> >PC-like, and I'm guessing that it doesn't exist. I do agree with Alan
> >that Apple should get a group of PC users to thrash the UI out and
> >complain about it. All we need is some extra functionality, perhaps
> >optional and enabled in the control panel, that would let us do the
> >things we're accustomed to doing. Some of it makes a lot of sense.
>
> ...and my post about American/British was read wrongly. You're not
> going to change the ways of drivers on either side of the Atlantic;
> nor should you try to change the ways of the drivers on the shores
> of the PeeCee and Mac seas. Learn each. There are differences in
> the philosophy of both -- whether good or bad -- and you should be
> embracing them and not trying to change them.
>
> Like I said, I come from the VMS world but I can live and navigate
> in the unix realm. I still think that VMS command syntax, for ex-
> ample, is better than unix. DIRECTORY(VMS) for ls(unix); SEARCH
> for grep; RENAME for mv; DELETE for rm; etc. etc. I believe it is
> far more intuitive to use the "english" command names in VMS than
> it is to use the cryptic unix commands but I'm not promoting that
> unix be changed in the least. You learn it and then do it. Same
> goes for the PeeCee/Apple differences. If there is any "religion"
> in this thread, it is from the PeeCee types wanting to bastardize
> the Apple GUI. Like I said before, coming to all of this from out-
> side of both camps, I can navigate my new PowerBook's GUI without
> having to chow down a vallium, down several pints of Guinness and
> pound my head between two bricks to dumb myself down to where any-
> thing I have to do on the PeeCee makes sense.
>
> Here's some for you... The kids have dropped the Gateway's mouse on
> the ground so often that it was iffy trying to click with the main
> mouse button used if you're a righty (didn't bother me I'm lefty).
> I purchased a Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse. It would func-
> tion during the initial load but as soon as Weendoze took over, it
> wouldn't function properly. Several "BIOS" updates and driver up-
> dates didn't fix the problem. Then on about the third or fourth
> support call, someone suggested that I swap the mouse and keyboard
> plugs on the back of the PeeCee. (ie. mouse's plug into keyboard's
> jack; keyboard's plug into mouse's jack). That fixed the problem
> and gave me a headache. That's just one of the many many many too
> many kludges I've had to endure over the years with the PeeCee. I
> have another concerning making it work with my color laser printer.
> For one, Billy won't let you use a $ sign in the lpd queue name. I
> suppose he's reserving the $s for himself. I needed to install a
> "driver" for the printer (for a totally autonomous network device)
> to make it function. After conjuring up a totally new queue name
> without a $ sign and several reboots, the printer was usable. (It
> still can't properly select which tray to use). Took me just one
> try in the Apple to setup this same laser printer. The window on
> the Apple didn't balk when I gave it the queue name with the $ in
> it and I didn't need to reboot numerous times (didn't need to re-
> boot at all!). ... and, if I select US legal... the second bin on
> the printer is selected (even though it's not legal size paper but
> letterhead...). I won't delve too far into the networking issues
> but I haven't had to once manually release a DHCP address issued to
> the Powerbook from my DHCP server. This is a problem time and time
> again on the PeeCee whenever it is rebooted. I have also been able
> to reconfigure the various network interfaces on the Powerbook and
> didn't need to reboot!
>
> I am not an Apple zealot. I'm just relaying my experiences and it
> would seem that, from my perspective, things just work in the Apple
> world and they work a whole lot better than in Billy's world.

In article <ab56ee07.0312081354.4463410d@posting.google.com >, googlegroups.20.shuppatsu@spamgourmet.com (Neil Banman) writes:
>I appreciate your comments, and I'll take this opportunity to step
>back a bit, since I don't want this to become a Mac vs. PC thing. I
>do have a lot to say because it's something I'm interested in, but I
>took too critical a tone toward Apple. They have done a lot of things
>right, for sure.

.... and I'm quite new to the Apple scene. I've had to toil PeeCees in
the past few years. Coming into it with a fairly clean slate, I still
like the Apple UI and wouldn't like to see it cluttered or bastardized.


>That said, I want to clarify a few things. I am not an apologist for
>Windows, though I think the current *user interface* is excellent.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Some people like liver; others
do not. I for one do not particularly care for liver. If you like it
that's fine with me... Just don't ask that my favorite meal of a good
rare prime rib take on the flavor of liver.

There is much to be said for the diversity in OSs and GUIs. There was
also a sentiment back in the early days of OPEN systems that standard-
ization would somehow cure the cyber world of all its evils. Standard-
ization only tends to yield stagnation. There's no room for innovation
unless you're Micro$oft and innovation is merely a mechanism to spread
the stranglehold of their monopoly.


>Having worked tech support for PC's and having used them for years, I
>know all too well the ridiculous problems associated with them (for
>example, this weekend, I reinstalled from scratch to get my CD burner
>to work). On the other hand, I had a Mac in college at a
>predominantly Mac school, and I've got plenty of lovely anecdotes from
>that side as well. But I appreciate how things *just work* on a Mac,
>and that's not at all something I'd want to argue about.

See, you've been indoctrinated and therefore feel there is something
missing in the Aplle interface that you're used to using in Weendoze.


>Perhaps it's not a point worth belabouring, but I don't really
>understand the "don't ask for change because the user interfaces have
>different philosophies" argument. First of all, I don't think there
>is much of a philosophical difference betweeen the two UI's (hope
>that's not opening up a new can of worms), largely because Microsoft
>stole elements from Apple wholesale. Robust keyboard support doesn't
>get in the way of how Macs are normally used.

Would you explain your last sentence please.


>Secondly, I think the user should be able to define his user
>experience as he sees fit. An example that kind of parallels your
>VMS/UNIX thing is Cygwin. While I'm no fan of UNIX commands either
>(grep? ls? awk? what were they thinking?), their shell is way better
>than command.com. So I downloaded Cygwin, which provides a unix-like
>command-line environment for Windows.
>
>Like it or not (and none of us do), Windows is the dominant paradigm.
>Apple wants people to switch, and I think it's in their best interest
>to make it as easy as possible for that switch to occur.

Lowering the pricing threshold would do more to lure people Apple's
way than making changes to their OS/GUI.

However, if you want Windows like GUI features in Apple's GUI, I'd
contend that Micro$oft should add Apple like features into theirs.

I'd like to be able to ad/remove an interface without having to go
through a rebinding (whatever the hell it is that that is doing)
and a reboot. Don't tell me I don't. I just did that a few days
ago to move the PeeCee to a different LAN segment (100bT vs. 10bT).


>As a postscript, when I was in highschool I used to have a PC with
>Windows 3.x. I used to design programs in my head that would make
>the UI more like a Mac. So you see I've been kvetching about
>perceived shortcomings in UI for a long time...

When I was in college, I built a SwTPC 6800 and I used RT-11 on
PDPs. I also used an analog EIA 8800. CP/M+MP/M, to me, seemed
far more robust long before M$ came out with DOS.

--
http://www.legacy-2000.com for the best OpenVMS system security solutions.

VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM

"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

I'm still not comfortable with bringing Weendoze baggage to Apple's GUI
but...

Years ago on VMS under X11 we had a product called "SoftWindows". What
it would allow is well-behaved Weendoze (That's a whole other ratsnest
for another day) program to run under an X11 window. If your intention
was to bring people over to the "bright" side from the dark side, Apple
should add something similar to install and run Weendoze apps. There
are numerous Weendoze only apps out there that people want to use. This
would, IMO, better serve the intent of the original poster's designs to
migrate users. Certainly more of a lure than some keyboard shortcuts?

Just a thought...

--
http://www.legacy-2000.com for the best OpenVMS system security solutions.

VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)COM

"Well my son, life is like a beanstalk, isn't it?"

In article <00A2A1C6.23A49776@SendSpamHere.ORG>,
VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote:

> Years ago on VMS under X11 we had a product called "SoftWindows". What
> it would allow is well-behaved Weendoze (That's a whole other ratsnest
> for another day) program to run under an X11 window. If your intention
> was to bring people over to the "bright" side from the dark side, Apple
> should add something similar to install and run Weendoze apps. There
> are numerous Weendoze only apps out there that people want to use. This
> would, IMO, better serve the intent of the original poster's designs to
> migrate users. Certainly more of a lure than some keyboard shortcuts?

There used to be two competing x86 Windows emulators, one of which was
SoftWindows which is no longer available. Connectix also had a product
called VirtualPC. Both ran legit copies of Windows inside the MacOS.
Microsoft has since bought VirtualPC and now bundles it with the Pro
edition of Office for Mac. There appears now that there is no longer
any Windows emulation available for the Mac except from Microsoft itself.

There was a rumor in the early days of Rhapsody, the rough early port of
the NeXT OS to Mac PPC chips, that there was a so-called Red Box that
allowed Windows binaries to run natively but ended up excised most
likely due to the Microsoft investment in Apple in '97 plus legal
concerns over the need for a Windows license.

--
Pax,
Pastor Mac
On OSX
"I'd be a better Calvinist if they didn't have such a need to be right
about everything." --author Calvin Miller